From Politico: “This change is felt most in the Senate, which is beginning to look like a production of ‘Oklahoma’ filled with understudies and missing old stars such as Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones.”

What exactly prompted a line of thinking that led to a simile like that? Visions of Robert Byrd as Aunt Eller? John McCain and Joe Lieberman singing “People Will Say We’re in Love”?

I’m not criticizing the idea, necessarily. Chuck Grassley and Ken Salazar could dance around while the rest of the Senate sings “The farmer and the cowman should be friends.” And I hear Larry Craig is just a girl who cain’t say no.

But Kit Bond might have a hard time justifying any more huge infrastructure earmarks to Missouri after singing “Everything’s up to date in Kansas City.”

I don’t know. But who could resist Ted Kennedy with a rousing rendition:

Tuna, cod, and bass better scurry
When I take you out in the surrey….

From the Associated Press:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada appeared briefly for the cameras with six Democrats who defeated Republican incumbents on Election Day: Mark Warner of Virginia, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Udall of Colorado, his cousin Tom of New Mexico, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

Lessee now: the incumbent Mark Warner defeated was…oh. He didn’t defeat an incumbent. John Warner didn’t run again, and Mark Warner won the open seat.

The incumbent defeated by Mark Udall was Wayne Allard, who got absolutely slaughtered–he didn’t get one single vote! Oh, wait–he didn’t run for re-election, either. So that was an open seat also.

And the incumbent defeated by Tom Udall was Pete Domenici–also absolutely slaughtered, also not getting a single…. Ah. Also didn’t run again.

But the other three–AP got those right. That’s a .500 batting average for the AP today–ahead of the norm!

(This guy also plays “Classical Gas,” which I guess also describes what he’s playing above.)

(Two fart-related posts in a row–and they’re the only offerings in many weeks. Rather sad. I blame George W. Bush.)

Politico on Joe the Plumber:

And it turns out that Wurzelbacher makes less than $250,000 a year, which means he would receive a tax cut if Obama were elected president.

Just like that. No action by Congress needed; Joe the Plumber will receive a tax cut if Obama wins.

What a country! I need to get my absentee ballot back and change my vote to Obama if that’s all it takes to lower my taxes.

From Politico, on the bailout vote:

“I guess the Republican leadership is so weak, John Boehner couldn’t deliver 50 percent of the votes. I thought these were big boys,” a furious House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) said moments after the vote.

I take it the Democrats, then, were much more disciplined and attentive to their leadership. Or something like that:

As the time clock struck zero on the bailout vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi strode toward Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, to ask her to change her nay to a yea.

Kilpatrick refused to even look at Pelosi during the exchange, calmly removing her jacket and laying it on a chair. At the end of the day, 20 of 39 caucus members voted against the bailout plan–votes that could have saved the bill.

“Too often, it seems that self-professed small-government conservatives come to this town to fight the good fight. Somehow, we do things we ought not to be doing in order to stay in office so we can do things we ought to be doing. But we never actually get around to doing the right things.”

…and we are indeed a nation of whiners.

How else could the venerable Washington Post look around for victims of the “economic crisis” and only come up with 1. a retired 64-year-old who is so worried about health care costs that she has to “force” herself to use her gym membership every day, 2. a chain-smoking market-playing 58-year-old who might have to give up on his dream of buying a farm in Iceland (”Like most Americans, he’s carrying more debt than he’d like and he started saving for retirement late…”), 3. a 45-year-old who decided to get serious about retirement earlier this year, stashing 50 bucks in a 401(k), 4. a wealthy dentist with three kids in college and a fourth soon to be, and (my favorite) 5. a Botox doctor who won’t be able to open three new clinics this year?

I don’t mean to pick on anyone (except the Post), but 1. being retired at 64 and having a likely-not-free gym membership does not a victim make, 2. not being able to buy a farm in Iceland (where you probably can’t smoke anyway) does not a victim make, 3. 45 is a bit out there into life to start saving for the future, 4. Barack Obama doesn’t think you should be punished with four children to begin with, and 5. the future of our economy will not rely on Botox clinic revenue, I hope.

I don’t know. This post is mean-spirited. But there are real victims of this “crisis” out there, even if they’re too busy trying to make ends meet to sit down for a chat with the WaPo.

I’m not so sure about this thing so far…. It’s okay–good for McCain, which is just okay.

But he would have been smart to go with “My friends, I accept your nomination–and now Sarah Palin has a few more things she’d like to say.”

“I’m not good at the one-line zingers. That’s not my deal.”–Joe Biden.

…my presidential candidate should really know how many houses he owns.

Makes him look a tad out of touch that he doesn’t.

I love me some Olympics. The pageantry, the focus and determination of the athletes, the John Williams soundtrack.

More the pageantry and the John Williams soundtrack, to be honest. Athletes doing well isn’t as interesting to me as athletes doing poorly–and/or throwing fits.

That Swedish wrestler guy threw a classic one.

Oh–and Mark Spitz threw a magnificent one. It’s gained a lot of attention, mostly from folks who didn’t know he shaved off the ’stache. And from folks like me who didn’t know he was still alive.

I love the geopolitics, Bush sitting with Putin while Russian tanks invade Georgia…. The lack of Juan Antonio Samaranch is always pleasant, too.

I even like the rough and tumble involving the nine-year-olds China is attempting to pass off as sixteen-year-old gymnasts.

Can’t quite get behind synchronized diving, though. The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius–faster, higher, stronger. Nothing in there about jumping off a platform and doing identical mid-air twisties.

And I don’t much care for the noodle-men pictograms they’re using to represent the various events. The one for rhythmic gymnastics, for instance:

To me, that doesn’t represent rhythmic gymnastics. It says “somehow my left leg has come detached, but fortunately I found this length of rope with which to tie it back on.”

A key part of Congress’s plan to bring down crippling transportation costs: House Resolution 1128.

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) expresses support for National Carriage Driving Month, along with its goals and ideals; and

(2) encourages supporters, historical organizations, and educational entities to observe the month and collaborate on efforts to further protect, preserve, and appreciate carriages as part of our Nation’s history.

(I wanted to call it a key part of Nancy Pelosi’s plan, but it was sponsored by a Republican. Who should be ashamed of himself.)

A custodial guy just came to my desk with new trash cans/recycling bins. He took my old ones and emptied them into the new ones, then set the new ones down for me to use.

I know better than to ask: why not just collect the old ones at the end of the day–along with the trash inside them–and drop off the empty new ones then?

Or does that violate some union rule? Some contractual mandate negotiated by the Recycling Bin Distributors’ Federation Local 1556?

Addendum: one of the cans is labeled “Landfill Waste.” The only purpose I can see in that is the comedy material it provides; Congress generates so much landfill waste that each office needs separate bins to hold it.

I was born and raised in Toledo and have never thought of leaving. In fact, I still live in Toledo for the same reason people slow down and gawk at car wrecks.

“Retired diplomat” Dan “Invade Syria? Insane” Simpson.

He says:

It wouldn’t take much U.S. military force to get rid of Mr. Mugabe in Zimbabwe or to block off the generals in Myanmar from the stricken area, but we have no excess military capacity. If we weren’t in Iraq, it is conceivable that America could lead the international community in putting an end to the ability of Mr. Mugabe and the Myanmar generals to torment their populations.–Toledo Blade column.

That’s a target-rich paragraph from the retired diplomat. (That’s how he’s identified at the end of every column. It’s a funny moniker, since you’d figure a diplomat is always a diplomat–or at least diplomatic enough even in “retirement” to earn the name. Maybe not quite like a Marine never being a former Marine, but close enough in the diplomatic world.) If only the warmongers weren’t busy putting an end to the ability of Saddam and the Iraqi leadership to torment their populations, we could have put an end to the ability of Mr. Mugabe et cetera et cetera. If only we weren’t over there fighting the war you want to fight, we could be over here fighting the war I want to fight. But the war I want to fight isn’t in Syria, either, because that would be insane. It’s in Myanmar, or quite possibly Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, or wherever else I say.

Also: “It wouldn’t take much U.S. military force to get rid of Mr. Mugabe….” Contrasted with this from three years ago: “A decision to invade Syria is not a decision for Mr. Bush, heading a beleaguered administration, to make for us on his own.” I’m a tad confused. Maybe “U.S. military force” isn’t the kind of thing you should say when you’re trying to emphasize that we shouldn’t use this force without the consent of the international community. I don’t know. Maybe I would understand if I, too, were a retired diplomat.

Squirrelly Madeleine, also a retired diplomat, pontificated on this as well; one of these retired diplomats copied the other’s work. Whichever direction that happened, Madeleine sure squirreled up her version before it went to print:

A decade ago, when Myanmar was allowed to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, I was assured by leaders in the region that they would push the junta to open its economy and move in the direction of democracy. With a few honorable exceptions, this hasn’t happened.

So it’s her fault that Myanmar is letting its own citizens die. Except it isn’t her fault, because she can always blame George W. Bush instead:

The invasion of Iraq, with the administration’s grandiose rhetoric about pre-emption, was another matter, however. It generated a negative reaction that has weakened support for cross-border interventions even for worthy purposes. Governments, especially in the developing world, are now determined to preserve the principle of sovereignty, even when the human costs of doing so are high.

Thus, Myanmar’s leaders have been shielded from the repercussions of their outrageous actions. Sudan has been able to dictate the terms of multinational operations inside Darfur. The government of Zimbabwe may yet succeed in stealing a presidential election.

Dan: you forgot to blame Sudan on George W. Bush! Ten points off.

Evidently, everything in Sudan, Myanmar, and Zimbabwe was just fine when the two of you weren’t retired. I seem to recall otherwise, but I’m not a retired….

Anyway. Madeleine’s completely off the reservation and approaching Carter Country, I fear. And not the fun one starring Victor French. Imagine if a so-called neo-con held forth on the need for “cross-border interventions.” I thought the Left railed against Bush’s Empire and our current penchant for bullying the world and demanding our own way. And intervening wherever we feel like it.

Question for Madam Secretary: if cross-border interventions are the way to go, and if they were legitimate when you were in two very high foreign-policy roles in the Clinton Administration during which nearly one million were killed in Rwanda….

Madeleine has me so frustrated and flummoxed by her article that I don’t have a good ending here. And, while I shouldn’t be too frivolous after mentioning the Rwandan Genocide, I would note that Victor French looks a little like Saddam Hussein.

Barbara Walters: I had affair with U.S. senator

“Israel is the only country whose creation was approved by the UN; yet it is the only country whose legitimacy is called into question.”–from “Happy 60th birthday, Israel–well done for surviving” at melaniephillips.com.

This article (”Clipping, Scrimping, Saving“) will be on A1 of the Washington Post tomorrow, according to the website. Heartrending tales of people who have to–gasp–clip coupons, buy sale items, buy bulk items, and otherwise economize on groceries.

The last thing Marti Tracy wants to do on a Saturday is clip coupons. But last month the 34-year-old Bowie resident felt she no longer had a choice.

…

Tracy and her partner also stopped buying the cereals they like in favor of whatever was on sale; stopped picking up convenient single-size packs of juice, water or crackers; and, in order to save gas, stopped going to multiple stores.

…

Other shoppers, like Kathleen Holly, are coping by visiting fewer stores and shopping closer to home…. “If I’m driving, I go to the bank, the grocery store, the cleaners all in one trip. That way, I can save money on gas and keep buying the things I’m buying.”

Am I wrong not to be terribly moved by the plight of these people? Am I wrong to be, so to speak, an unfeeling SOB? Because growing up in my house, we employed these tactics to great success and didn’t view them as some sort of last resort before landing in the poorhouse….

The last thing you want to do on Saturday is clip coupons? The last thing I want to do on Saturday is clean the toilet. Should I feel your pain?

You buy brands that are on sale instead of brands that you like? I still joke about this with my mom: growing up, I was told that my favorite brand of spaghetti sauce was whatever was on sale that week. Coke versus Pepsi? Whichever one was on sale. Hey–come to think of it, I still do that. One or the other is on sale every week, and that’s the one I buy.

And this novel idea about doing all of your errands in one trip…. Are there really people out there who go to the bank and come home, go to the grocery store and come home, go to the dry cleaners and come home…?

There are many, many folks in the Post’s circulation area who are genuinely hurting, genuinely struggling. Evidently the reporter couldn’t find any and had to settle for Marti Tracy, who had “already given up organic meat and decided to buy organic milk only for her two-year-old son, not for the whole family.” This qualifies for A1, sob-story-style coverage?

Oh: “Consumers also are saving by stocking up on sale items, then trying not to waste.” Brilliant! I can only hope that this fine work by the Post is circulated far and wide so that all may benefit from this wisdom. Buy sale items and don’t waste them! How wonderful it will be once that secret gets out.

(Addendum: If anyone from the Post wants to interview me about the toilet-cleaning hardships I’ll face this weekend, I’m here at the house most nights after 8:00, usually clipping coupons.)

House Resolution 49: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that there should be established a National Letter Carriers Appreciation Day.

House Resolution 578: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that there should be established a National Watermelon Month.

House Resolution 892: Expressing support for designation of March 11, 2008, as “National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day.”

“If you buy books from a local independent bookstore, you are keeping the local economy going, and you’re being green because you’re not shipping books to your house.”–Valerie Koehler, owner of Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston.

Be sure to visit the Blue Willow website, where you can order books and have them shipped to your house.

It’s three years to the day since my dad died.

I wish I had something clever and/or erudite to say today; nothing came to me all day.

Not a whole lot came to me today–the taxpayers’ money was not spent well on my salary. That day’s timeline was on constant playback in my head for most of the morning and afternoon.

Lacking anything meaningful, I’ll just say that if he were still around, I’d be on the phone to him to see if he just got as big a kick out of Hillary’s debate statement on the Bosnian sniper fire incident (”…and I said some things that I knew weren’t in keeping with what I knew to be the case…”) as I did.

He’d probably be sick of the debate by now (as I am also) and flip it over to the Indians game.

They’re losing 9-1. Ack.

(As I said: I wish I had something clever and/or erudite to say today.)

“What’s that word for a group of birds?”

“A flock.”

“Yeah–a flock. Thanks.”

“We want trade and plenty of it….”–Sherrod Brown.

Next week, the United States House of Representatives will hold a major week-long debate on the war in Iraq–a no-holds-barred discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of immediate troop withdrawal.

No, wait–that’s not on the schedule.

Next week, the United States House of Representatives will complete work on the long-overdue $286 billion Farm Bill to provide certainty to farmers as they enter the planting season–and to state governments, which face challenges in implementing the food stamp program.

Hmm. That’s not on the agenda either.

Next week, the House will engage in a serious debate on how best to reform our terrorist surveillance laws to ensure that we do not lose any vital intelligence that could prevent attacks on military and civilian targets.

No, I guess not–that’s not on the docket.

Oh–here it is: next week, the House will debate H.R. 2537, the Beach Protection Act.

It will also consider legislation (H.R. 2016) to establish the National Landscape Conservation System within the Bureau of Land Management.

And an all-important resolution recognizing the plumbing industry and “supporting the goals and ideals of ‘National Plumbing Industry Week.’” (That one hasn’t been introduced yet and doesn’t have a bill number; I guess the final details are still being hammered out at the highest levels of leadership.)

From an e-mail I just received: “Attached is a letter that we are also faxing today.”

Icon at the bottom of said e-mail:

“You can always spot a fool, for he is the man who will tell you he knows who is going to win an election. But an election is a living thing–you might almost say, the most vigorously alive thing there is–with thousands upon thousands of brains and limbs and eyes and thoughts and desires, and it will wriggle and turn and run off in directions no one ever predicted, sometimes just for the joy of proving the wiseacres wrong.”–Marcus Tullius Tiro in Robert Harris’s Imperium.

“Throughout his distinguished career in service to the people of Ohio, U.S. Senator George V. Voinovich has strived to make government ‘work harder and smarter and do more with less.’”–official Voino biography.

“We’re going to have to raise more money in this country. Did you hear me? We’re going to have to increase taxes in order to do the job.”–Voino this week, according to the Gongwer News Service.

Dear United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America:

Our office is in receipt of your letter stating your solid opposition to the pending free trade agreement with “Columbia.”

What do you have against South Carolina that you don’t think other places in the United States should be allowed to trade freely with it?

God bless you for your fine carpentry and joining work.

Yours truly.

“I want you to think who you want to have in the White House answering the phone at 3:00 in the morning when some crisis breaks out somewhere around the world.” — Hillary Clinton.

“Because, you see, this election is about who can take the heat–who you want there when that secured phone in the White House rings at 3:00 AM. Do you want someone who will answer the phone politely: ‘Hello, this is the President. Speak slowly and clearly and tell me what the problem is.’ Or do you want someone who’s cranky, who says, ‘This better be important,’ or ‘Do you realize what time it is?’ or simply says, ‘Shut up!,’ hangs up the phone, and sleeps like a baby while the world burns!” — “George H.W. Bush.”

House Majority Leader Hoyer announced today that Deputy Floor Director Alejandro Perez has been promoted to replace retiring Floor Director Rob Cogorno. Replacing Perez as deputy will be Alexis Covey-Brandt, currently the deputy director of member services and floor assistant. Perez joined Hoyer’s staff in January 2003 after serving as executive director of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Covey-Brandt also joined Hoyer’s staff in January 2003 after having taught second grade.–CongressDaily

Reuters:

U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur came to a House committee hearing on Thursday prepared to ask U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson tough questions about his involvement in the subprime mortgage crisis.

Unfortunately, she was questioning the chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Priceless video here.

Torture
Crack Cocaine
Manure Exemption
Pigford Reopener
Animal Fighting
Friction Stir Welding
Mexican Trucks
Canadian Cattle
Brazilian Corn
Cromnibus
Umbrella Tariffs

I am currently not very good at managing time. Not a good steward of time. Not a good timesteward, which is notaword.

For instance, for the last half-week, I’ve been wanting to put something in writing about journeys in general–but specifically about the Ohio-Virginia drive I make about six times a year, if not more. Something about making the trip back in the dark sometimes, and how I rely on the taillights of the cars in front of me–even if they’re far ahead of me–to know where I’m going. Something about how I get nervous when I drive through the Maryland mountains late at night, especially when it’s foggy, and there are no cars in sight to follow. Something about how God gives us the guides we need to make our journeys, maybe something about how we can rely on the yellow line along the right shoulder when we don’t have those guides.

Then the attention-deficit kicks in and I reflect on how the highway departments paint those lines with a unique compound that actually disappears in the rain. Brilliant. There was an article recently about British technology efforts to render tanks invisible; all they’ll need to do is paint them highway yellow and soak them down. But I digress from the digression.

No reason I haven’t taken the time to flesh that stuff out yet. Well, maybe work stuff, which for a variety of reasons is much heavier this year than last. And I’ve managed to do some reading this week, finishing off a book we’re using in a Sunday School class and starting another. And slogging through Numbers, which is only slightly more of a page-turner than Leviticus.

I set a highly unrealistic book-reading goal for myself this year (77). I’m at…a lower number than that, even when counting the books in the “started but stopped” pile. I set no movie-watching goal for myself this year, but am closer to that 77 than with the books:

The Good Shepherd
Children of Men
Rocky Balboa
The Queen
Notes on a Scandal
Breach
The Number 23
Amazing Grace
Zodiac
Shooter
300
Pathfinder
The Hoax
The Reaping
Fracture
Hot Fuzz
Mr. Brooks
Spider-Man 3
A Mighty Heart
SiCKO
Talk to Me
The Simpsons Movie
3:10 to Yuma
Eastern Promises
Across the Universe
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
The Kingdom
Rendition
Michael Clayton
American Gangster
Lions for Lambs
August Rush

(August Rush was today’s flick and is a fine movie, but from some prominent holes in the structure of the thing I imagine there was a lot taken out toward the end.)

(And that Keri Russell is a rather appealing-looking person.)

So, yes: time stewardship needs improvement in the reading category, probably not so much in the movies category. The journey to my study (just across the hall) is far shorter than the journey to the theater in the outlet mall (17 miles), and I shouldn’t need any taillights or invisible paint lines to guide my way.

Neither journey involves driving through fog-prone mountains, though, so 2008 could see me hit the 40-movie mark. I can live with that–especially if it’s accompanied by the 40-book mark.

Each House Office Building has its own United States Postal Service joint, so it’s never a big deal to find one open when another is closed. Having said that, it’s a fun little game to play to walk past one at random times of the day to see if it’s open.

An attempt to put something in the mail today has turned into a little logic puzzle. Signs outside the closest post office indicate that:

• it is closed daily from 10:45 AM to 11:15 AM for “administrative reasons,”
• it would only be open today from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and
• it was currently (10:20 AM) closed but would reopen at 11:00 AM.

So I waited until 11:40 AM to head down there–in case they tacked that daily “administrative reasons” closing onto the end of the 11:00 AM reopen. Still closed, but with one of those little clock signs on the door now with the hands set for noon.

Or maybe midnight–who knows.

Maybe Brown can do something for me.